Greg Myre

Greg Myre is a national security correspondent with a focus on counter-terrorism, a topic he has covered in the U.S., the Middle East and in many other countries around the world for more than two decades.

He was previously the international editor for NPR.org, working closely with NPR correspondents around the world and national security reporters in Washington. He heads the Parallels blog and is a frequent contributor to the website on global affairs. Prior to his current position, he was a senior editor at Morning Edition from 2008-2011.

Before joining NPR, Myre was a foreign correspondent for 20 years with The New York Times and The Associated Press.

He was first posted to South Africa in 1987, where he witnessed Nelson Mandela's release from prison and reported on the final years of apartheid. He was assigned to Pakistan in 1993 and often traveled to war-torn Afghanistan. He was one of the first reporters to interview members of an obscure new group calling itself the Taliban.

Myre was also posted to Cyprus and worked throughout the Middle East, including extended trips to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. He went to Moscow from 1996 to 1999, covering the early days of Vladimir Putin.

He was based in Jerusalem from 2000-2007, reporting on the heaviest fighting ever between Israelis and the Palestinians.

Myre is a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington and has appeared as an analyst on CNN, PBS, BBC, C-SPAN, Fox, Al Jazeera and other networks. He's a graduate of Yale University, where he played football and basketball.

Staff Sgt. Ronald Shurer, a medic in the Green Berets, was part of a small unit sent by helicopter on a risky mission to track down an enemy fighter in a remote mountain village in northeastern Afghanistan in 2008.

After the Americans landed and began climbing the mountain to approach the village, they came under withering fire from an unexpectedly large force of some 200 fighters armed with automatic rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, according to the military.

On Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush was visiting Sarasota, Fla. At 8 a.m. sharp, the CIA's Michael Morell delivered the daily intelligence briefing — something he did six mornings a week — regardless of whether the president was at the White House or on the road.

"Contrary to press reporting and myth, there was absolutely nothing in my briefing that had to do with terrorism that day," Morell recalled. "Most of it had to do with the Israeli-Palestinian issue."

For the third time in recent days, a prominent group of former national security officials has signed a letter criticizing President Trump's decision to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.

In a related development, Trump said in a tweet Monday that he wasn't concerned about Brennan's remarks over the weekend that he might take legal action in response to the president's move.

Today President Trump took aim at one of his harshest critics. He revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan. Here is White House press secretary Sarah Sanders reading from the president's statement.

President Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week has raised the question, what is the U.S. government doing to protect our elections from foreign interference? We take a look in this week's All Tech Considered.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats on Monday directly challenged comments by President Trump, saying the U.S. intelligence community has been "clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election."

Coats has maintained an extremely low profile, rarely making public comments, since President Trump appointed him last year.

President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a broad statement Tuesday that calls for a "firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," after their historic summit in Singapore — the first ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

When President Trump shakes hands with Kim Jong Un on Tuesday morning, it will mark the first time that a sitting U.S. president comes face to face with a North Korean leader. Trump once dubbed Kim "Little Rocket Man" and threatened "fire and fury" against his regime, but has expressed optimism about a potential deal with North Korea on denuclearization. "I just think it's going to work out very nicely," he said Monday. But he has also said he is prepared to walk away from the table if talks are not fruitful.

The Pentagon said Thursday that an investigation into the deaths of four American soldiers in Niger last year found "individual, organizational and institutional failures." But it said no sole reason was responsible for the ambush.

When Michael Hayden ran the CIA and the National Security Agency, his public comments were largely confined to congressional testimony. Now that he's retired, "I'm on Twitter and I'm on CNN," said Hayden.

He was also the featured guest as dozens of former national security officials and several current ones spoke at a recent conference on threats the U.S. faces.

The Pentagon has started briefing the families of four soldiers killed in an ambush in Niger last October, and the military acknowledges a series of missteps contributed to the deaths, one family member told NPR.

"I think in any instance where people lose there lives, there were obviously mistakes that were made," said Will Wright, the brother of one of those killed, Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright. Will Wright is himself a combat veteran, having served as a staff sergeant in Afghanistan. He and his family were briefed by military officers on Thursday.

John Brennan's tenure as CIA director ended the same day that President Trump entered office last year, and since then, the former spy chief has been a relentless critic of the president.

"I think he is dishonest, he lacks integrity, he has very questionable ethics and morality, and he views the world through a prism of 'how it's going to help Donald Trump?,' " Brennan said in a wide-ranging interview with All Things Considered.

"I just think that he has not fulfilled the responsibilities of the president of the United States," Brennan added.

Gina Haspel, the first woman nominated to lead the CIA, has a five-foot-tall poster of Johnny Cash in her office. She's an avid University of Kentucky basketball fan — though she transferred from that school and graduated from the rival University of Louisville. She majored in journalism.

Trump's decision to dispatch Pompeo for a secret meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is the latest and most dramatic demonstration of how the president keeps elevating Pompeo's role.

In a turbulent administration, Trump has dismissed several top national security and foreign policy advisers, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The president has nominated Pompeo, the CIA director, to replace Tillerson.

President Trump signed a proclamation Wednesday for the deployment of National Guard troops along the Southern border with Mexico in a bid to cut down on illegal immigration.

Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said earlier in the day that Trump's order would direct her department and the Pentagon to work with governors of the states along the Southwestern border.